Introduction#

You may need to send e-mails to users for many reasons, for example a cart checkout confirmation or a registration notice. While sending an email is very easy, coding the body in your java is a no no. The proper way to construct the subject/body of an email in Liferay is to use a velocity template and fill in the variables.

Method #

Here is an example of how this works in Liferay:

Create a new velocity file, lets call ours

 checkout.vm

We will be storing ours in

 ext-impl/src/com/company/portal/cart/dependancies/

The content of the vm is this:

 You have purchased $cart.getItemName() for $cart.getCost()

You now need to create a template for the from address, subject, and from name. You don't absolutely have to do this, as you may want to use the velocity template to generate the subject for you and you may want the from info to change based on what type of item they purchase or something.

I created

 mail.properties

in

 ext-impl/src/com/company/portal/cart/dependancies/

with the content

 fromAddress=test@liferay.com
 fromName=Joe Bloggs
 subject=Thank you for your purchase

Now, inside our java where we build the email (for myself, it's CartLocalServiceImpl)

At this point I assume we have a Cart object being passed in.

 User user = UserLocalServiceUtil.getUserById(cart.getUserId());
 String template = ContentUtil.get("com/company/portal/cart/dependancies/checkout.vm");
 Map<String, Object> variables = new HashMap<String, Object>();
 variables.put("cart", cart);
 Properties props = new Properties();
 ClassLoader classLoader = getClass().getClassLoader();
 InputStream is = classLoader.getResourceAsStream("com/company/portal/cart/dependancies/mail.properties");
 props.load(is);
 String body = VelocityUtil.evaluate(template, variables);
 InternetAddress from = new InternetAddress(
 props.getProperty("fromAddress"),
 props.getProperty("fromName"));

 InternetAddress to = new InternetAddress(
 user.getEmailAddress(),
 user.getFirstName() + StringPool.SPACE +
 user.getLastName());

 MailMessage message = new MailMessage(from, to, props.getProperty("subject"), body, true);
 MailServiceUtil.sendEmail(message);